June 28, 2019, we were up early, took windows screens off, took antenna whip off and disconnected power and water. Decided to go to the Sweet Shoppe for breakfast. Good food, with the waitresses in "period" dress. Back to the Motor Home we retracted the slides and lifted the jacks and got prepared to pull over to the dump station to empty the holding tanks.
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| They have been on the road a while. |
We returned to our Motor Home and decided to use the dump station on the opposite side, which was going to take a little maneuvering. Finally in position, we dumped the tanks and headed out. Deb was driving the Jeep to try and reduce the strain on the Motor Home climbing out of the canyon. After we got past the US Customs Check Point and before we got to Fraser, YT, we stopped and I connected the Jeep and we continued the journey. The road had levelled out considerably.
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| Looking toward Alaska (the road just travelled) |
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| Looking into Canada - Yukon Territory |
That complete we continued on to the town of Carcross, YT. This is the end point for the Yukon White Pass Railway. This is the same train that runs cruise ship passengers from Skagway to Fraser, YT.
The town has developed a good sized arts and sovieneer sales plaza. It centers around the train station and the oldest mercantile in the Yukon. A pretty interesting and eclectic combination, but heavy on first nation people and there art. After picking up a few trinkets it was off to Whitehorse.
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| St Saviour's Church |
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| Visitor Center in Carcross |
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| End of the line (or start of the line) Train Station Carcross. Also contains a nice sovieneer store. |
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| Billed as the oldest (or first) Mercantile in the territory |
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| An eclectic group of shops in a decked area adjacent to the Visitor Center |
On arrival in Whitehorse, we fuelled the Motor Home and filled the propane tank. Then it was back to Hi Country RV Park where we got a 30A full hook up back in site. We were told that things would probably be busy as this was Canada Day Weekend. Canada Day is July First, which is Monday.
A trip to Walmart and Sav-On Foods, then back to the motor home for dinner and limited cable TV
June 29, 2019 - After getting up late, getting breakfast, we headed to the Braeburn Lodge on Yukon Highway 2, also known as the Klondike Loop. The Braeburn Lodge purports to have the largest Cinnamon Buns in the area. After a 55 mile drive along nice roads with patches of construction, we arrived at the non-descript lodge. The lodge's other claim to fame is being the half-way point on the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest International Dog Sled Race. Whitehorse, YT to Fairbanks, AK.
We walked in and found an older gentleman sitting at a table, looked to be finishing lunch. White hair and white beard, could be a Santa Claus. We stood at the counter looking at the cinnamon buns on display. Yes, they are big, they fit a 10 inch paper plate nicely. Another younger gentleman came from the kitchen and asked if he could help. My wife asked for a heated cinnamon bun. He picked one up and left for the back. Then a lady came in to pay for some fuel she had purchased. The "Santa" got up came behind the counter and ran up her fuel sale. The younger gentleman came out with the cinnamon bun on a paper plate, still wrapped in plastic wrap. I took the cinnamon bun, and the "Santa" asked the younger man if he had heated it with the plastic wrap off. The younger man said no and and "Santa" stated that it would not be any good. The younger man reached to take it back and "Santa" stated no, he (meaning me) has already touched it.
I asked for a cup of coffee - serve yourself and a diet coke in the bottle for Debbie.
The Cinnamon Bun was good, thicker dough than most and lite on the sugar and cinnamon.
The coffee tasted like crap -
June 30, 2019 - On the road about 9A today, got the Motor Home extracted from the site and took it down the road and hooked the Jeep up in front of the Interpretive Center. This gave Debbie a chance to get our "passport" stamped. After hooking up the Jeep it was off on our way to Discovery Yukon in Koiderm, YT. This is the first section of road where we started to really encounter frost heaves.
We made a couple stops at Museums and Interpretive Centers. The first was the Da Ku Cultural Center. This focuses on the First Nation people that occupied the area.
They also had a quilt display with several individual panels. Photos of a few of them are attached.
Travel was not bad. The road followed rivers, it crossed river, followed Kluane Lake and in about five hours we arrived at Discovery Yukon.
This RV Park is located right along the Alaska Highway. Convenient and surprisingly little traffic noise at this park. Of course the volume of traffic on the Alaska Highway is not heavy. "Behind" the RV Park is a grass private air strip, no air traffic while we were there. Inside the office you were greeted with the wonderful smell of baking bread. A small sign advertised white or Wheat bread, rolls, muffins, cookies - all made on site. There was also a large number of Taxidermy (stuffed) animals. There were stories attached to most of them.
A Caribou that was still in velvet - poached in the local area,
A Bison named George, who even though they constructed a fence, decided that he liked lying in the road better. After being struck many times, they finally decided that he was creating a danger to himself and others, so he was euthanized.
Then there was a grizzly that was an uninvited guest in the RV Park office about 13 years ago. The owner of the RV Park shot it in the office and had it "stuffed."
This park also has displays of some vintage vehicles, snowmobiles, fuel pumps and the like. One review labelled the park as a photographer's paradise. There were lots of things to take pictures of.
The park runs on a diesel generator. That night they were having a wedding, the park was full and the weather was unseasonably warm, in the mid 80s. Everyone had their air conditioners on and the main breaker tripped. Everyone lost power.
The RV Park staff came around and explained the problem and asked that A/C units not be used if possible.
We went to bed at 10PM and started the A/C and it ran uninterrupted all night. A lot of these out of the way RV Parks, this one and one like Toad River, rely on generators.
July 1, 2019 - Today was the trip from Discovery Yukon - Koiderm, YT - to Tok, AK. When leaving the park, one of the owners apologized for the power problem the previous evening. She stated that the generator was just overloaded due to the unseasonal temperatures and everyone wanting to use an A/C caused the main breaker to trip, plus the water pump on the generator was failing and the unit was overheating. Hazards of owning and running an RV Park in the middle of nowhere.
The drive to Tok was not bad, it was about the same as the roads that we had been on, patches of gravel and frost heaves. We stopped in Beaver Creek, YT to get fuel and then we continued on.
We met a Husky mix dog at the Visitor Center. Check out the saying the on the handlers shirt.
A stop was made at the International Border for photographs.
The International Border is marked with a six foot wide swath of land that is clear of brush and trees, leaving it like a long walking path. Additionally there are monuments every so often.
The International Border Committee maintains this six foot swath of land and goes in every year and cleans up a section of the border. There is a bench that straddles the International Border.
Sit on one side and you are in Yukon Territory, Canada. Sit on the other side and you are in Alaska, USA. Or, straddle the line with your.... feet and you can be in each country.
Less than a quarter of a mile further and you are at the US Border checkpoint. Now pulling in, there are three lanes. The two left lanes go under a cover and the far right lane has no cover and is marked for Commercial Buses and Commercial Trucks.
The covered section, the left two lanes, are marked with a height of 12 feet 10 inches. Remember that legal height limit on US Highways is 14 feet. Our Motor Home, which we had measured before we left Texas is 12 feet 9 inches. OK....lots of room. On the sign that states 12 feet 10 inches is a tennis ball, suspended below it about three inches. We watched a Motor Home go through before us and the tennis ball hit the Air Conditioner on top.
Then it was our turn. I heard the antenna in the center of the roof hit the sign as we went under. The antenna is on a spring so I was not concerned with damage. We could not see the top of the Motor Home to see how the Air Conditioner faired, but there was no loud noises. I pulled up to the window and told the Agent that they really needed to raise their roof a little bit. She smiled, and then asked how tall the Motor Home was. I told her it had been measured at 12 feet 9 inches before we left home. She got concerned that we would not make it under the cover. I told her that I could unhook the Jeep and back out of the cover and go around, but there was quite a line behind me. She came out of the booth and climbed up a ladder and looked over the top, came down shaking her head. She came back to the booth and pointed out a sprinkler pipe that we still needed to cross under and stated that it cost $10K to replace it if I damaged it. Another person came out of the booth and climbed the ladder and he stated that it looked good to him. The agent took our passports, scanned them and handed them back and we were on our way....Slowly, waiting for the shriek of metal and the gush of water from the pipe, wondering what Capital One would say about a $10K charge on their card for replacing the sprinkler pipe, and whether Farmer's Insurance would put us in their Hall of Fame. Thankfully we made it without incident.
Upon arriving in Tok, (rhymes with poke) we located the Three Bears Outpost and the adjacent RV Park. The RV Park looked overgrown and the buildings that housed the check in and restrooms looked to be abandon and the doors had padlocks on them. I walked over to the convenience store/sporting goods store and inquired and was told that I was assigned space #18. Going back to the RV Park, I walked down to space 18 and it appeared that we could get into it.
It was narrow, and had trees on both sides - mistake #1 occurred when I did not look up. Mistake #2 occurred when I figured with my driving skills I could get into the site without unhooking the Jeep. I started to pull into the site with the mirror on the passenger side just barely missing the trees, I was doing good. Until I looked up in the drivers rearview mirror and saw a 2 to 3 inch diameter aspen or birch tree sliding along the slide cover roller. As i moved forward, it dropped off the end of the roller so it was now against the Motor Home. Aww Shucks.... I got out and assessed the situation and figured that if I unhooked the Jeep, I could back out of the spot, being careful not to back over the power pedestal. It was painted red, so it was easily visible. After unhooking the Jeep, Debbie watched the front passenger corner so I did not take a mirror off while I watched the drivers side. As I started to back up, that tree slid toward the front of the Motor Home and got lodged behind the back end of the slide cover roller. Well Shucks. I got out and reassessed the mess I had gotten into. The tree had to go. I did not think that the RV Park owners would appreciate me cutting down one of their trees. But, I had rope, a ladder and a Jeep. I put the ladder against the Motor Home, climbed up it and tied the rope around the two trees that were causing problem. I then put the Jeep crosswise in a space one site over. This put an empty space between the Jeep and the Motor Home. I tied the rope to a tow hook on the front of the Jeep and started backing up. I was able to pull the trees about 12-18 inches away from the side of the Motor Home. I backed the Motor Home out, and drove around the RV Park and put the Motor Home into the space where the Jeep had been. Retrieved the rope and all was good.
Next up was laundry. We planned to be in Tok for three nights, and at least one of the days would be taken up with a road trip to Chicken, AK.
We stopped at one Laundry Mat next to the RV Park, only to find it closed (abandoned) and a sign directing people to a Laundry Mat across the road at Tok RV Village. We went there and found some empty washers and a lady finishing her laundry. The lady was a "local" and provided information on the area and what TOK had to offer as far as Laundry facilities, Restaurants and the like.
While we were there another lady came in and started her laundry. She was older than Debbie and I by a few years. She and her husband had ridden motorcycles to Alaska several years ago and this time drove their truck and were staying hotels and cabins along the way. Debbie took to her immediately and during the time doing laundry flew by as Debbie and Ann Reed continued to talk and tell stories.
With laundry done, it was back to the Motor Home to hang up the clothes and put away clothes and then off to dinner at Fast Eddies, about the only place in Tok to eat. The place was full. We sat down and ordered beer battered Halibut fish and chips. The meal came with a trip through the salad bar. We were just finishing the salads when Debbie saw Ann Reed and her husband Jerry coming into the restaurant. Debbie waved them over and they joined us for the rest of the meal. From Tok they were headed to Anchorage and then to Valdez. The Reeds wanted to be in Valdez for the fourth of July as apparently there is a great celebration there. It was interesting conversation, Jerry had been a mechanic for many years, raced cars and motorcycles and after two back surgeries, the doctors told him to change professions. Jerry went back to college and started working in the mechanical design field. They lived for a time in Albuquerque, NM and were familiar with Lubbock and the surrounding area. They now live in Apache Junction, AZ and have a summer place (or had a summer place) in Show Low, AZ.
Good conversation. Good dinner.
Well this gets us into Alaska - More to come -
Today, July 2nd, started with sourdough pancakes at the Sourdough RV Park here in Tok, AK.
The pancakes, a good 9 or 10 inches, came with two eggs and your choice of Ham, Bacon, Pork Sausage or Reindeer Sausage. Not liking the thought that we might be eating Rudolph’s off-spring or siblings, we both choose the ham. This small cafe with seating for about 30 was pretty well filled. All the tables were set up for four or eight people. We shared out table with two couples that were on their way to Valdez, AK. They had also spent the Sunday night at Discovery Yukon in Koiderm, YT. There were also a couple gentlemen at another table discussing the state of the wildfires in Alaska and apparently doing some informal planning. The meal, a little slow in coming (one cook and one waitress and twenty people) was cooked perfectly. The sourdough pancakes lived up to their reputation as the best in the State (OK, we still have a few more samples to try). Our table was cover with notes, letters and payroll time stubs of years gone by.
An added attraction was a husky (breed) looking dog that met you at the front entrance.
The attached office has a very small gift shop. Definitely a place that we will come back to to sample the pancakes, maybe blueberry, before we leave or when we pass through on our way home.
After getting fuel in the Jeep and taking the dog for a walk, it was off to Chicken, AK, this 78 mile one way drive took us over green rolling forests and across permafrost sections. The road goes through areas that had been ravaged by forest fires in the past. And, across rivers, creeks and streams. The road surface for the most part was good pavement. Of the 66 miles from the junction with Alaska 2, probably a little more than half had areas of gravel, frost heaves or deteriorating pavement.
When we got into Chicken, the pavement stopped and the dirt began. This is the start of about a 70 mile section known as the Top of the World Highway. This extends from Chicken to Boundary on the US side and then about 20 miles west of Dawson City it is a paved road again. We had talked to some people yesterday (July 1) that had come across int their pickup truck and it was so foggy it was hard to see the road edge and the road was pretty slick. Glad we chose to bypass that.
The biggest business in Chicken is the Chicken Gold Camp.
This is a store, cafe, RV Park and home of the "Big Chicken" and a large amount of old mining equipment.
They also sponsor Chickenstock, a music festival, held in the middle of June each year. 2019 saw 1,500 people, all tickets were sold. One of the largest mining artifacts is an old dredge, Pedro 4, used as recently as 1967, on Chicken Creek.
The dredge pulled buckets of mud and dirt from the edges and bottoms of streams and deposited the material in sluices where small amounts of gold were extracted. (The buckets have been repurposed as planters.)
Larger rocks were hauled away to another location to be crushed and processed.
The "Big Chicken is a town feature. It was built on Homer, AK from scrap material, like old high school lockers, fishing equipment and the like. It was presented to the town during a Chickenstock music festival. Next to the chicken is the name and number of miles to various "chicken" themed towns or locations. Included was Rooster Rock in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.
The town also has another cafe, a mercantile and Saloon as well as another "Big Chicken."
The town also has a Post Office. During our visit they had just gotten a delivery of the twice weekly mail, brought in by small planes. The PostMaster stated that it was surprising the amount of mail and parcels that went through that Post Office. The entire Post Office, probably no bigger than our Motor Home, had a lot of chicken decorations.
Then it was back on the road to Tok.
So, how did the town of Chicken get its name - according to MilePost, the early miners wanted to name the camp Ptarmigan, but were unable to spell it, so choose to call it Chicken as that was the local name for Ptarmigan. Chicken has no city sewer, no city water and no city electricity. Sewer is septic or pit toilets, water is from creeks or wells and power from generators. As more and more people come to Chicken to visit it puts a strain on the business owners resources to provide the required services. This might be why on Tuesday nights, the Chicken Gold Camp has pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven. It would be to expensive to use electricity to power a pizza oven.
In mentioning the mail being delivered to Chicken via small aircraft, (this means that everything coming to and going from by US Mail is air mail) I did see an advertisement that you could (for a fee) ride along on a mail run. It happens twice a week and it stops in several of the small Alaskan towns. Something that one might want to keep in mind if travelling to this part of the country.
Fourth of July’s drive was from Tok, AK to North Pole/Fairbanks, AK - The morning started with a trip to the Sourdough Campground Cafe for sourdough pancakes, only to find it closed for the Fourth of July. So, off to Fast Eddie's for the Miner's Breakfast - Two eggs, ham, pork sausage, Reindeer sausage or bacon. Pancakes or toast. I chose Ham and blueberry pancakes, while Debbie also choose ham and toast. I cannot say that the breakfast was as good as the dinner. I ordered eggs over medium and one came yolk hard and the other with runny whites. The pancakes were good.
We returned to the Motor Home and finished unhooking and getting ready to leave. A quick stop for fuel at the Shell station next door, and we were on the road. The road was probably the best part of the Alaskan Highway we have driven. The road is still maintained with the wide cut right or ways. The vistas were rolling forested hills to rivers, lakes and ponds. Animal sightings today was just a cow Moose grazing along the road shoulder. We came up on it to fast to get a photograph.
A little more than a hundred miles down the road we stopped at Delta Junction. The official end to the Alaska Highway. The road number continues as Alaska 2, but the name changes to the Richardson Highway which comes up from Valdez.
This section of the ALCAN Highway from the US/Canadian Border, east of Tok, AK to Fairbanks, AK was designated as the Purple Heart Trail by Governor Sarah Palin.
We made a stop at the End of the Alaska Highway Monument and took photos and purchased a few trinkets. Now we could officially say that we drove the Alaska Highway, all 1,422 miles and have the T-Shirt and Certificate to prove it.
We continued on the Richardson Highway to North Pole, AK and turned off on Santa Claus Lane. Then we turned onto Badger Lane and ended at the Riverview RV Park on the banks of the Chena River. We got a 50A pull-through site with trees on both sides. We levelled, put out the slides, put on the window screens, put on the antenna and settled in.
The RV Park is tight, but does have enough space to put slides and awnings out, without interfering with the neighbors. The Park has a LaundroMat and advertises a free car wash. There is also lots of grass for the dog.
We walked in and found an older gentleman sitting at a table, looked to be finishing lunch. White hair and white beard, could be a Santa Claus. We stood at the counter looking at the cinnamon buns on display. Yes, they are big, they fit a 10 inch paper plate nicely. Another younger gentleman came from the kitchen and asked if he could help. My wife asked for a heated cinnamon bun. He picked one up and left for the back. Then a lady came in to pay for some fuel she had purchased. The "Santa" got up came behind the counter and ran up her fuel sale. The younger gentleman came out with the cinnamon bun on a paper plate, still wrapped in plastic wrap. I took the cinnamon bun, and the "Santa" asked the younger man if he had heated it with the plastic wrap off. The younger man said no and and "Santa" stated that it would not be any good. The younger man reached to take it back and "Santa" stated no, he (meaning me) has already touched it.
I asked for a cup of coffee - serve yourself and a diet coke in the bottle for Debbie.
The Cinnamon Bun was good, thicker dough than most and lite on the sugar and cinnamon.
The coffee tasted like crap -
June 30, 2019 - On the road about 9A today, got the Motor Home extracted from the site and took it down the road and hooked the Jeep up in front of the Interpretive Center. This gave Debbie a chance to get our "passport" stamped. After hooking up the Jeep it was off on our way to Discovery Yukon in Koiderm, YT. This is the first section of road where we started to really encounter frost heaves.
We made a couple stops at Museums and Interpretive Centers. The first was the Da Ku Cultural Center. This focuses on the First Nation people that occupied the area.
They also had a quilt display with several individual panels. Photos of a few of them are attached.
A stop was also made at the Kluane Museum of History in Burwash Landing. This one, kind of general in nature, had displays of dog sledding and the early settlers of the area.
Travel was not bad. The road followed rivers, it crossed river, followed Kluane Lake and in about five hours we arrived at Discovery Yukon.
This RV Park is located right along the Alaska Highway. Convenient and surprisingly little traffic noise at this park. Of course the volume of traffic on the Alaska Highway is not heavy. "Behind" the RV Park is a grass private air strip, no air traffic while we were there. Inside the office you were greeted with the wonderful smell of baking bread. A small sign advertised white or Wheat bread, rolls, muffins, cookies - all made on site. There was also a large number of Taxidermy (stuffed) animals. There were stories attached to most of them.
A Caribou that was still in velvet - poached in the local area,
A Bison named George, who even though they constructed a fence, decided that he liked lying in the road better. After being struck many times, they finally decided that he was creating a danger to himself and others, so he was euthanized.
Then there was a grizzly that was an uninvited guest in the RV Park office about 13 years ago. The owner of the RV Park shot it in the office and had it "stuffed."
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| Grey Wolf |
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| Moose antlers on the roof? |
The park runs on a diesel generator. That night they were having a wedding, the park was full and the weather was unseasonably warm, in the mid 80s. Everyone had their air conditioners on and the main breaker tripped. Everyone lost power.
The RV Park staff came around and explained the problem and asked that A/C units not be used if possible.
We went to bed at 10PM and started the A/C and it ran uninterrupted all night. A lot of these out of the way RV Parks, this one and one like Toad River, rely on generators.
July 1, 2019 - Today was the trip from Discovery Yukon - Koiderm, YT - to Tok, AK. When leaving the park, one of the owners apologized for the power problem the previous evening. She stated that the generator was just overloaded due to the unseasonal temperatures and everyone wanting to use an A/C caused the main breaker to trip, plus the water pump on the generator was failing and the unit was overheating. Hazards of owning and running an RV Park in the middle of nowhere.
The drive to Tok was not bad, it was about the same as the roads that we had been on, patches of gravel and frost heaves. We stopped in Beaver Creek, YT to get fuel and then we continued on.
We met a Husky mix dog at the Visitor Center. Check out the saying the on the handlers shirt.
A stop was made at the International Border for photographs.
The International Border is marked with a six foot wide swath of land that is clear of brush and trees, leaving it like a long walking path. Additionally there are monuments every so often.
The International Border Committee maintains this six foot swath of land and goes in every year and cleans up a section of the border. There is a bench that straddles the International Border.
Sit on one side and you are in Yukon Territory, Canada. Sit on the other side and you are in Alaska, USA. Or, straddle the line with your.... feet and you can be in each country.
Less than a quarter of a mile further and you are at the US Border checkpoint. Now pulling in, there are three lanes. The two left lanes go under a cover and the far right lane has no cover and is marked for Commercial Buses and Commercial Trucks.
The covered section, the left two lanes, are marked with a height of 12 feet 10 inches. Remember that legal height limit on US Highways is 14 feet. Our Motor Home, which we had measured before we left Texas is 12 feet 9 inches. OK....lots of room. On the sign that states 12 feet 10 inches is a tennis ball, suspended below it about three inches. We watched a Motor Home go through before us and the tennis ball hit the Air Conditioner on top.
Then it was our turn. I heard the antenna in the center of the roof hit the sign as we went under. The antenna is on a spring so I was not concerned with damage. We could not see the top of the Motor Home to see how the Air Conditioner faired, but there was no loud noises. I pulled up to the window and told the Agent that they really needed to raise their roof a little bit. She smiled, and then asked how tall the Motor Home was. I told her it had been measured at 12 feet 9 inches before we left home. She got concerned that we would not make it under the cover. I told her that I could unhook the Jeep and back out of the cover and go around, but there was quite a line behind me. She came out of the booth and climbed up a ladder and looked over the top, came down shaking her head. She came back to the booth and pointed out a sprinkler pipe that we still needed to cross under and stated that it cost $10K to replace it if I damaged it. Another person came out of the booth and climbed the ladder and he stated that it looked good to him. The agent took our passports, scanned them and handed them back and we were on our way....Slowly, waiting for the shriek of metal and the gush of water from the pipe, wondering what Capital One would say about a $10K charge on their card for replacing the sprinkler pipe, and whether Farmer's Insurance would put us in their Hall of Fame. Thankfully we made it without incident.
Upon arriving in Tok, (rhymes with poke) we located the Three Bears Outpost and the adjacent RV Park. The RV Park looked overgrown and the buildings that housed the check in and restrooms looked to be abandon and the doors had padlocks on them. I walked over to the convenience store/sporting goods store and inquired and was told that I was assigned space #18. Going back to the RV Park, I walked down to space 18 and it appeared that we could get into it.
It was narrow, and had trees on both sides - mistake #1 occurred when I did not look up. Mistake #2 occurred when I figured with my driving skills I could get into the site without unhooking the Jeep. I started to pull into the site with the mirror on the passenger side just barely missing the trees, I was doing good. Until I looked up in the drivers rearview mirror and saw a 2 to 3 inch diameter aspen or birch tree sliding along the slide cover roller. As i moved forward, it dropped off the end of the roller so it was now against the Motor Home. Aww Shucks.... I got out and assessed the situation and figured that if I unhooked the Jeep, I could back out of the spot, being careful not to back over the power pedestal. It was painted red, so it was easily visible. After unhooking the Jeep, Debbie watched the front passenger corner so I did not take a mirror off while I watched the drivers side. As I started to back up, that tree slid toward the front of the Motor Home and got lodged behind the back end of the slide cover roller. Well Shucks. I got out and reassessed the mess I had gotten into. The tree had to go. I did not think that the RV Park owners would appreciate me cutting down one of their trees. But, I had rope, a ladder and a Jeep. I put the ladder against the Motor Home, climbed up it and tied the rope around the two trees that were causing problem. I then put the Jeep crosswise in a space one site over. This put an empty space between the Jeep and the Motor Home. I tied the rope to a tow hook on the front of the Jeep and started backing up. I was able to pull the trees about 12-18 inches away from the side of the Motor Home. I backed the Motor Home out, and drove around the RV Park and put the Motor Home into the space where the Jeep had been. Retrieved the rope and all was good.
Next up was laundry. We planned to be in Tok for three nights, and at least one of the days would be taken up with a road trip to Chicken, AK.
We stopped at one Laundry Mat next to the RV Park, only to find it closed (abandoned) and a sign directing people to a Laundry Mat across the road at Tok RV Village. We went there and found some empty washers and a lady finishing her laundry. The lady was a "local" and provided information on the area and what TOK had to offer as far as Laundry facilities, Restaurants and the like.
While we were there another lady came in and started her laundry. She was older than Debbie and I by a few years. She and her husband had ridden motorcycles to Alaska several years ago and this time drove their truck and were staying hotels and cabins along the way. Debbie took to her immediately and during the time doing laundry flew by as Debbie and Ann Reed continued to talk and tell stories.
With laundry done, it was back to the Motor Home to hang up the clothes and put away clothes and then off to dinner at Fast Eddies, about the only place in Tok to eat. The place was full. We sat down and ordered beer battered Halibut fish and chips. The meal came with a trip through the salad bar. We were just finishing the salads when Debbie saw Ann Reed and her husband Jerry coming into the restaurant. Debbie waved them over and they joined us for the rest of the meal. From Tok they were headed to Anchorage and then to Valdez. The Reeds wanted to be in Valdez for the fourth of July as apparently there is a great celebration there. It was interesting conversation, Jerry had been a mechanic for many years, raced cars and motorcycles and after two back surgeries, the doctors told him to change professions. Jerry went back to college and started working in the mechanical design field. They lived for a time in Albuquerque, NM and were familiar with Lubbock and the surrounding area. They now live in Apache Junction, AZ and have a summer place (or had a summer place) in Show Low, AZ.
Good conversation. Good dinner.
Well this gets us into Alaska - More to come -
Today, July 2nd, started with sourdough pancakes at the Sourdough RV Park here in Tok, AK.
The pancakes, a good 9 or 10 inches, came with two eggs and your choice of Ham, Bacon, Pork Sausage or Reindeer Sausage. Not liking the thought that we might be eating Rudolph’s off-spring or siblings, we both choose the ham. This small cafe with seating for about 30 was pretty well filled. All the tables were set up for four or eight people. We shared out table with two couples that were on their way to Valdez, AK. They had also spent the Sunday night at Discovery Yukon in Koiderm, YT. There were also a couple gentlemen at another table discussing the state of the wildfires in Alaska and apparently doing some informal planning. The meal, a little slow in coming (one cook and one waitress and twenty people) was cooked perfectly. The sourdough pancakes lived up to their reputation as the best in the State (OK, we still have a few more samples to try). Our table was cover with notes, letters and payroll time stubs of years gone by.
An added attraction was a husky (breed) looking dog that met you at the front entrance.
The attached office has a very small gift shop. Definitely a place that we will come back to to sample the pancakes, maybe blueberry, before we leave or when we pass through on our way home.
After getting fuel in the Jeep and taking the dog for a walk, it was off to Chicken, AK, this 78 mile one way drive took us over green rolling forests and across permafrost sections. The road goes through areas that had been ravaged by forest fires in the past. And, across rivers, creeks and streams. The road surface for the most part was good pavement. Of the 66 miles from the junction with Alaska 2, probably a little more than half had areas of gravel, frost heaves or deteriorating pavement.
When we got into Chicken, the pavement stopped and the dirt began. This is the start of about a 70 mile section known as the Top of the World Highway. This extends from Chicken to Boundary on the US side and then about 20 miles west of Dawson City it is a paved road again. We had talked to some people yesterday (July 1) that had come across int their pickup truck and it was so foggy it was hard to see the road edge and the road was pretty slick. Glad we chose to bypass that.
The biggest business in Chicken is the Chicken Gold Camp.
This is a store, cafe, RV Park and home of the "Big Chicken" and a large amount of old mining equipment.
They also sponsor Chickenstock, a music festival, held in the middle of June each year. 2019 saw 1,500 people, all tickets were sold. One of the largest mining artifacts is an old dredge, Pedro 4, used as recently as 1967, on Chicken Creek.
The dredge pulled buckets of mud and dirt from the edges and bottoms of streams and deposited the material in sluices where small amounts of gold were extracted. (The buckets have been repurposed as planters.)
Larger rocks were hauled away to another location to be crushed and processed.
The "Big Chicken is a town feature. It was built on Homer, AK from scrap material, like old high school lockers, fishing equipment and the like. It was presented to the town during a Chickenstock music festival. Next to the chicken is the name and number of miles to various "chicken" themed towns or locations. Included was Rooster Rock in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.
The town also has another cafe, a mercantile and Saloon as well as another "Big Chicken."
The town also has a Post Office. During our visit they had just gotten a delivery of the twice weekly mail, brought in by small planes. The PostMaster stated that it was surprising the amount of mail and parcels that went through that Post Office. The entire Post Office, probably no bigger than our Motor Home, had a lot of chicken decorations.
Then it was back on the road to Tok.
So, how did the town of Chicken get its name - according to MilePost, the early miners wanted to name the camp Ptarmigan, but were unable to spell it, so choose to call it Chicken as that was the local name for Ptarmigan. Chicken has no city sewer, no city water and no city electricity. Sewer is septic or pit toilets, water is from creeks or wells and power from generators. As more and more people come to Chicken to visit it puts a strain on the business owners resources to provide the required services. This might be why on Tuesday nights, the Chicken Gold Camp has pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven. It would be to expensive to use electricity to power a pizza oven.
In mentioning the mail being delivered to Chicken via small aircraft, (this means that everything coming to and going from by US Mail is air mail) I did see an advertisement that you could (for a fee) ride along on a mail run. It happens twice a week and it stops in several of the small Alaskan towns. Something that one might want to keep in mind if travelling to this part of the country.
Fourth of July’s drive was from Tok, AK to North Pole/Fairbanks, AK - The morning started with a trip to the Sourdough Campground Cafe for sourdough pancakes, only to find it closed for the Fourth of July. So, off to Fast Eddie's for the Miner's Breakfast - Two eggs, ham, pork sausage, Reindeer sausage or bacon. Pancakes or toast. I chose Ham and blueberry pancakes, while Debbie also choose ham and toast. I cannot say that the breakfast was as good as the dinner. I ordered eggs over medium and one came yolk hard and the other with runny whites. The pancakes were good.
We returned to the Motor Home and finished unhooking and getting ready to leave. A quick stop for fuel at the Shell station next door, and we were on the road. The road was probably the best part of the Alaskan Highway we have driven. The road is still maintained with the wide cut right or ways. The vistas were rolling forested hills to rivers, lakes and ponds. Animal sightings today was just a cow Moose grazing along the road shoulder. We came up on it to fast to get a photograph.
A little more than a hundred miles down the road we stopped at Delta Junction. The official end to the Alaska Highway. The road number continues as Alaska 2, but the name changes to the Richardson Highway which comes up from Valdez.
This section of the ALCAN Highway from the US/Canadian Border, east of Tok, AK to Fairbanks, AK was designated as the Purple Heart Trail by Governor Sarah Palin.
We made a stop at the End of the Alaska Highway Monument and took photos and purchased a few trinkets. Now we could officially say that we drove the Alaska Highway, all 1,422 miles and have the T-Shirt and Certificate to prove it.
We continued on the Richardson Highway to North Pole, AK and turned off on Santa Claus Lane. Then we turned onto Badger Lane and ended at the Riverview RV Park on the banks of the Chena River. We got a 50A pull-through site with trees on both sides. We levelled, put out the slides, put on the window screens, put on the antenna and settled in.
The RV Park is tight, but does have enough space to put slides and awnings out, without interfering with the neighbors. The Park has a LaundroMat and advertises a free car wash. There is also lots of grass for the dog.
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